Titanium 550 and Toshiba P4 1.6 compared

[FORMAT]

Yo

Just coming back from comparing the TIBook 550 with Toshiba 1900 model w/ P4 1.6 GHz processor...... both with a demo version of LIVE by ableton.
Tried it on the mac first.... after more than 4 tracks simultaneously, it started stuttering heavily, adding 2-4 plugs made the processor meter go up to 224%!!!!
At that point, it was impossible to use the book at all... took about 2 minutes to even stop the damn thing.....

I expected poorer performance on a stock "Saturn-Hansa" laptop.. .. so I tried it on the Toshiba.
I tested both notebooks with their internal sound device of course!

Put in a nutshell..... the Toshiba just wouldn't peak out. I added track after track (close to 30 at the end of my test....) and could not insert enough plugz to make it cross the 50 percent mark..... What do you laptop specialists make of that? Memory for Live on the Pbook was aroun 80 MB..... I certainly expected it to behave better than that....
Do any of you have any experience with P4 processor computers?

Thank you very much for you attention.
FORMAT

[Killer tomato]

Interesting reading for me, I'm weighing up the pros and cons of buying a Powerbook or a Laptop PC, how do the 2 machines compare running VST, Logic or Reason? I would prefer the mac in some ways (More stable OS, Better designed system Archetecture, and cool Titanium of course) But if this the performance that can be expected I'm not sure about forking out the £2000, when I can get a pc compatible notebook that performs better...The other thing putting me off the powerbook is no soundforge, which I don't know if I could live without...I've had a play with peak and it's just not the same....advice anyone??

[c s]

we never had a platform war on these boards... this time i feel it coming... lol

i have heavy doubts mac os is more stable if you compare it to the windows pro versions. of course it always wins against the consumer versions 9x/me which is easy. btw i just installed the most evil xp, now 3 os on one machine. i'm curious to see how it behaves...

[jamyna]

Coincidentally, I installed XP on my machine yesterday, and it seems pretty rock actually.
However, those familiar with my Reaktor teething problems (or should that be seething problems? they want to charge quite heavy for the new 3.3 upgrade) you may be interested to know that the crossgrade i got for my G4 at work runs Reaktor smoother than on my P4 at home. Though this could be a soundcard issue. I have to do some more testing at the weekend.
Admittedly the Mac still seems to lack a decent destructive wave editor, the likes of Soundforge etc. For availability of software I would still go for a PC.

I hope I'm not feulling a platform war - if I could afford it I would have both!

[c s]

if I could afford it I would have both!

yeah that's just it ! and as long as money's short you're simply better off with a pc - in my opinion............ lol

in fact NI admit reaktor runs more smoothly on pcs than on macs, reviews also said that.

expensive 3.3 upgrade ?!? :p not good... outstanding new features ? i haven't even used all the recent ones...

[FORMAT]

As far as logic vst etc running on both is concerned. I went to future media here in munich, THE specialist for all matters bits'N'bytes.... told them I want a laptop: The PC specialist goes: Get a mac, one can never be sure if pc laptops works... sends me over to the mac guy.... who says: macs are at only 667mhz, if I were you i'd get a pc 1.6ghz book.... told me that logic sucked on the pbook, whichhe proved with some kind of processor-killing reverb plugin... still we got many tracks just not with many pluginz... so thats the deal: if your pc laptop happens to be configured professionally (they refused to sell me a pc laptop but said I could bring one in and have them install the RME sound card) it rocks. the one i tested today had all the usual crap on (autostart etc) and still rocked.. i wonder: should i have bought that one right away?????
I'm too slow on decisions....


regards
FORMAT

[benmilstein]

hi
i have a titanium g4/500 w/512mb ram
it fucking rocks. fast and solid. the best computer ive ever owned....
>Memory for Live on the Pbook was aroun 80 MB.....
how much was in the pc? 80mb is piddling. it takes 35 to 50 just for the os (maybe more depending on how its configured), leaving pretty much nothing for live to deal with. toss a 512 in there and see how it goes....
also... keep in mind that the second generation titaniums are actually as much as 15% slower than their predecessors. even with faster processors (the 667 rated slower than the original 500)
this is because apple went cheap and stopped getting their logic boards from motorola.. the new logic boards have a wimpy 256 L2 cache (as opposed to 1mb on the original ti series) even with a higher bus speed (which is directly related to cpu speed) the smaller cache size cause serious bottlenecks.
*end of rant*
peace
ben

[marcin]

yeah titanium rocks. my is g4/400 with 512 RAM and is really fast bitch.
how fast program works usually depends on this how much RAM memory will you assign for it. I have assigned for my Logic 300MB of RAM, which seems to be enough. another important thing is your hard disk. recommended are external firewire disks with oxford chips. i have been working on powerbooks since 1999 and i really love it. it never crashes (except are bullshit utilities like Microsoft Outlook and Explorer, which crash everyday). Also I really like design of Apple computers and to be honest I cant say the same about most of the PCs...

M

[ischo]

you've got to be careful about the P4 notebooks. most of em have a desktop processor ,so they tend to get really hot and suck on power dramatically.
and remember to uninstall half of the win-bullshit.

[FORMAT]

Hi guys

Thanx for all your feedback ..... I guess I am not proficient enough at setting up Macs, ... 80MB for allocated for LIve; the Powerbook was a new 550 one, although with just DVD player..... so it would have had 256 MB I guess???? It was a stock machine. Maybe the problem was to do with live (a OS9 app) was launched from X?? But it said it would change to the Classic mode automatically.
It did not play the samples correctly at all, there was a lot of crackling and with 4 of Live's internal plugz it got to 200% system overload. Is there any other thing that one could do dramatically wrong with such a machine?
Otherwise, the G4Titan is a gorgeous machine. Maybe some of you can tell me how to set it up; I would prefer this over any other laptop if the performance matches that of a 1+ GHz Pentium III one......
I will however wait for a revision as the smaller processor cache seems to limit performance; I am also very keen on trying the new Sony Vaio with 16" screen and mobile P4.... looks very promising, ischo, doesn't it?

FORMAT

[marcin]

first of all assign more RAM memory...
select execute file of the program (not alias), then go to Finder menu (File/General Info/Memory) and assign more RAM memory. if you dont know how much RAM does your machine have click on the apple (left, upper corner of the screen) and click About This Computer...

Marcin

[lucid rinehead]

probably not a good idea to run it using classic (9 on X)...better to reboot into OS 9 proper if you are running any audio stuff or anything else that gets down and dirty with the nuts and bolts of i/o

[FORMAT]

Good... so there is a slight chance that all that non-performance was to do with Memory and OS 9 Classic issues? marcin and benmilstein, do you use your books live? How many tracks do you get, and plugs etc??
Regards,
FORMAT

[ischo]

haven't heard about that sony yet, but MOBILE P4 sounds good to me. just remember that LIVE! really doesn't care about RAM that much cause it reads directly from your HD. so think about spending some extra-cash on a faster HD.

[lucid rinehead]

seems a shame, now that memory is so cheap...maybe i am just wary of stretching disks to the limit of their performance cause they're mechanical

[benmilstein]

>Good... so there is a slight chance that all that non-performance was to do with >Memory and OS 9 Classic issues? marcin and benmilstein, do you use your books live? >How many tracks do you get, and plugs etc??

better than a good chance. your problems are due to a) having osx on your machine at all (what do you need it for anyway? get it off there till your music apps work on it) and b) not enough ram or ram not allocated properly.
also.. turn off virtual memory (if its on).
get osx off that machine man!! its just fucking things up for you. and make sure you do a clean install of os9 (that is, format your hard drive completely and start from scratch) otherwise you will be even more fucked!

hope that helps..
peace
ben

[lucid rinehead]

i boot OS9, OSX and PPC Linux on my machine (from the linux OF bootloader, which makes it easy) and everything works fine...but...X is on a seperate physical disk, if that makes any difference. X absoutely rocks and i can't wait for the audio manufacturers to get drivers and carbonised software finished...

i never use classic for anything though...

[FORMAT]

Hi Killa Tomato and all
today i've checked out the 600 mhz ibook for a long time with ableton live.. and it just simply worked beautifully..... whichproves that my tibook probs were simple config fuckups. the ibook was on os9.2, no classic, it had virtual memory turned ON but still rocked,... about 19 tracks and 15 effects before it would stall.... so, apart from it not having a PC card slot, this would be my choice at Euro 2500, which is about the same you pay for a good sony... the newest sony, btw has 16mb on-board graphics and 16 shared, which is bad news for me as i would have purchased it otherwise.

griazi
FORMAT

[c s]

Originally posted by FORMAT
has 16mb on-board graphics and 16 shared


then i'm quite confident you could turn that sharing off. 16 mb is more than enough for graphics on an audio notebook.

[FORMAT]

That sounds good C S - didn't know that is possible. 16mb sure is enough, and if that is the only reason for dropouts.....these new 16-inch sonys sure look good.

btw, how about your XP-erience???
what are your first impressions with xp...apart from the different look, it must indeeed work solidly as powerusers, e.g. oscwilde from the logic board at sonikmatter, report.

pump it up...
FORMAT

[c s]

i didn't do any audio stuff on it yet - rather want to take it as a replacement for 98se. my audio stuff is on w2k and i don't think xp would make too much of a difference.

i found drivers for most of my devices (except one) i use under 98se, and the general impression is good. as long as you use a firewall... ;)

btw it was just a guess you can turn off the sharing in the bios - i can't guarantee that.

[FORMAT]

as long as you use a firewall...

You mean because the machine keeps "calling Microsoft HQ"? There is a small application that stops XP from doing that.... If you want it shout.

FLOORMAT